Hi,
First of all, sorry for my bad english. I'm a german developer of
banking software for financial institutes. But in my freetime I'm
coding 2D and 3D Games since many many years. Some of you may have
seen the one or the other of my minigames or screensavers on
different european an us fansites. My alias is Fabulous Mod.
So, as I've spend a lot of time in testing FPSC for the last days,
I think it's time for me to make a review.
So I will split the FPSC-package into 4 parts:
1. the editor
2. models, textures and soundfiles
3. the game engine
4. documentation
The FPSC Editor:
For the package-price of 45 €, the FPSC editor is an awesome
coded product. Very easy to learn and to use, clearly and good
structured. It was an ease for me to create my first small level.
The realtime-rendering is very exact end very fast and with
the grid-system, it is very easy to place the items well.
The first time that I was annoyed was as I've to use the undo-function. This function seams to work like a random-generator.
The segment that I've painted and I wish to undo was still there,
but some of the surrounded segments has gone to the nirvana
.
I was not able to reconstruct the building, so at least I've to
delete the level. I think TGC should have an eye on the undo-function, because it is a very important tool.
All in all I've had a lot of fun to work with the editor an this
tool has an enormously potential.
Worthy of improvement:
the lightmapper is, sorry for this swear word, crappy slow and incorrect. Sometimes, even if I choose a high-level lightmapping,
the texture-triangles are jumping into my eyes
).
It should be possible to delete not needed items from the item-list
(Tool window on the left side).
There should be a function to edit scriptfiles directly in the editor-environment. This would save a lot of time.
So, my result for the Editor, on a scale of 100 Points is: 80 points
-------------------------------------
2. models, textures and soundfiles
The textures in FPSC are continous well done and have a almost
professional look. The randomized texturing of the segments
is a very nice and perfectly implemented feature.
A /bow from me to the graphical-designers
.
The models are well designed but imho not up to date.
A few more polygons will make them look better.
In the FPSC advertising they have told me about hundreds of different
Models, but Aiko with Pistol, Aiko unarmed, Aiko with shotgun, Aiko with Sniper,... so some more different characters would not be bad.
Oh yes, there are some soundfiles in the FPSC-Package.
Ande the quality of this soundfiles is awesome.
But to create a FPS-Game, I should have a lot more of
background-music and FX-Sounds. The proposal of soundfiles that was
delivered with FPSC is imho atm to small.
So, my result for the Models, Textures, Sounds is: 50 points
3. the game engine
hmmm, what should I say???
the game engine is... is... is... yeahh it's horrible (imho).
You ask me why I've said horrible? OK, here's my answer:
With the current Version of the game engine it might be possible
to create a multiplayer game with no AI.
But please, please, don't try to make a multilevel-single-player-game
with AI-Enemies that are following AI-Waypoints (or even scripted)
and dynamic entities.
AI-enemies will (sometimes) work well if you don't use
any waypoint-scripts (so just take sniper-mods that are waiting for you). But if you make use of the waypoints sooner or later all
AI-chars will stuck on walls, entities or segments.
And I've also made examples with AI-enemies (without waypoints)
where i could shot the enemies from behind without getting any AI-
reaction of the enemy. But the script says that the enemy has to turn around to the player if he gets shot.
FPS:
No, Not First Person Shooter -- Frames per second.
So as I've seen on the board here, the FPSC-Engine was build to run
on 30 FPS. I don't know if this is the truth. I have a mid-level
system, but when I have mor than 3 enemies and some decal-effects
running in a level, it could happen that my system will make only
10 to 12 frames per second.
(btw. I can play F.E.A.R in a 1024/768 resolution with middle
texure quality on my system with 48 FPS)
So, my result for the Game-Engine is: 30 points
4. Documentation
the documentation in the boxed Version is.....
The PDF-Documentation on the CD is OK so far, but there should be a better explanation of the script-codes.
So, my result for the Documentation is: 50 points
This review only shows my personal opinion!!!
Please TGC, you have created a great base for an upcoming
Game-Development-System. So please have an eye on the game
engine and the AI. Without making this features better, you
will loose your fans imho.
Fabulous Mod
